College can be hard on your love life. In a high-speed world, it is easy to feel like you are incapable of keeping up with all of the speeding moments passing by. Your school needs you, your friends need you, and your job or internship needs you. Everyone seems to need you, and then suddenly, a partner needs you too. As a straight woman, balancing my needs with those of a man is something I didn’t realize would be so difficult. I did not realize how the addition of my male partner would drastically change how others perceive me. The needs I tend to are suddenly looking at me in a way that I did not anticipate, leaving me to wonder if straight males in relationships are impacted similarly.
Something college has and will continue to teach me is professionalism. Bringing a partner into the professional image you have created for yourself is confusing and way more difficult than I could have expected. How does one decide what is professional? How does one portray oneself as a person, girlfriend, and peer? It seems like an impossible task, balancing it all, and I care about portraying them all correctly. But I have found that men may not share this feeling.
I was so afraid to open up about my love life with people I trust. At some point, I must have been taught to be afraid of mixing the personal and professional. But I did it, and I am writing this, trying to decide if I regret it. Would he? When I went to analyze this feeling, I stumbled upon this conclusion: it’s true, heteronormative women are embarrassingly in relationships, while heteronormative men are unabashedly in relationships.
This has huge implications that I am just now starting to understand. In a professional setting, deciding to share seems like the hardest possible decision. I do not want to be perceived as a damsel in distress or a complaining, lovesick woman. I want to be seen as a strong, capable young lady who can keep up with her professional, school, and personal lives. Again, I wonder if he has ever had to worry about his perception in this way. I wonder if now, because of him, I will always have to worry about my professional connections’ perceptions of me. I wonder how I will learn to deal with this feeling completely alone.
I can deal with this feeling completely alone, but first, I am going to be angry.
I feel angry that I live in a world where I have to worry about this, angry that some have much harder feelings to work through on their own, angry that I am doing all I can do to combat this feeling, and it still does not feel like enough, and angry that he may never understand.
Here are three steps I am taking to try to level the playing field for women struggling with perception in their new heteronormative relationships.
- Listen
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Share these thoughts with him. That will always be my first piece of advice. Your boyfriend is completely part of your personal life. So, you have every right to take a second and share these thoughts with him. Share your point of view on being afraid of your professional image changing, and then listen to their response.
- Learn
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I am sure he had some sort of reaction. Take a second to learn from that. Did he share similar insecurities or feelings? If they were different, take a second to identify how and work to address those in your behavior. Be open-minded throughout this process, and don’t forget the goal: genuinely learning how your partner deals with this complicated relationship, and then, learning how he feels about bringing his relationship into his workspace.
- Reflect
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You can’t expect someone to fully understand something without experiencing it for themselves, but you can expect them to attempt to learn. Is he making that attempt? Reflect on that. If you successfully worked through the first two steps, reflecting can mean big things for your relationship. Reflection leads to action, so it is important to take your time and fully reflect on your conversation.
In conclusion, we are living in a world where women unfairly have to worry about appearing unprofessional when talking about their boyfriends. Men may not share this concern. This is a big conclusion, so it is important to have a conversation with your significant other before taking any action. It doesn’t have to be embarrassing; it may just take a little extra work to make it feel more comfortable for both parties.